


Hair of a Wolf

by elsmaster



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Hale's Worst Life Ever, Hangover, Humor, M/M, Monster of the Week, Pre-Slash, Witch Curses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 07:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsmaster/pseuds/elsmaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek is dying. Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hair of a Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> This is set somewhere within the time frame of 3A. Because even Teen Wolf doesn't know what's going on with the timeline of Teen Wolf.

Derek was dying.

Which, okay, not the most original of plot twists, considering the guy was like a very grumpy textbook definition of a death wish, but this time there were no grossly oozing wolfsbane bullet wounds, or Alpha claws, or metal rods stuck through his back (Stiles had heard about that one, and, seriously, way to overdo it, creepy Alpha douchebags), and yet: dying. _Pale, and sweating profusely and pretty definitely about throw up his guts_ kind of dying.

No, more like _pale, and sweating profusely, and violently and_ definitely _throwing up his guts at the feet of the token human_ kind of dying _._

“Ugh, gross,” Stiles complained, helping Scott and Isaac haul Derek to the sofa at the loft.

Derek clearly had a preference for dying in close proximity to Stiles, considering he’d literally fallen (face-first, which was hilarious for about fifteen seconds before the whole dying thing became evident) into Stiles’ room through his window (doors, Derek, _doors_ ), at seven on a Saturday morning, and interrupted his epic all-nighter of Mass Effect 3.

Stiles wasn’t going to deal with a dying werewolf alone, so he’d called for backup. Mostly because there was no way he could hide the body all by himself, and Scott was kinda the reason Stiles had been dealing with the supernatural shitstorm for the past year.

Isaac had tagged along since, apparently, him and Scott were now bros. Stiles was so not bitter about that. (He was totally bitter about it.)

Scott had tried taking Derek’s pain while Isaac hovered in the background and Stiles tried to act unimpressed (some werewolfy super powers still made him want to high five everyone in the room, okay, but he _was_ getting better at not yelling about how fucking awesome everything was). It didn’t end well, and for a while Stiles was sure he’d have two werewolf corpses to deal with, and he didn’t count on Isaac being of much help.

They’d then dragged Derek back to his loft (in Roscoe the Jeep, the friendly neighborhood werewolf emergency vehicle) because Stiles had read somewhere that people liked to die at home.

The three of them stared at Derek, who was doing a very good job at dying on the sofa.

“We need to call Deaton,” Scott decided.

“We don’t even know what’s happened,” Isaac noted.

Derek chose that moment to regain a semblance of clarity for exactly long enough to spit out the word “witch”.

And yeah, well, _figures_.

Derek was really good at pissing people off on daily basis without even trying. It was obviously just a matter of time before he’d manage to piss off someone who’d curse him to die painfully. Maybe it was a wolfsbane curse. Was that a thing? Stiles hoped it wasn’t a thing.

“Okay, then we’ll get him to Deaton’s,” Scott said.

“Yeah, no, I’m not going to let him barf on me again. I’m pretty sure he gets carsick,” Stiles protested, arms wide to stress just how much the idea sucked.

“You go, I’ll stay back and keep an eye on him,” Isaac suggested and no, okay, worst idea _ever_. Stiles was convinced Isaac would freak out, destroy the loft and choke on a plastic bag if he was left to deal with his dying Alphas-slash-roommate.

“I stay,” Stiles said and, when Scott’s eyebrows did a thing Stiles swore was something only werewolves were capable of, added, “Trust me, best option, right here.” He gestured at himself with all the theatricality of a shopping channel presenter.

Scott agreed, gestured at Isaac to follow him out of the loft, and took off.

Stiles stared at the closed door for a while and then turned to Derek, who had passed out on the sofa. He wasn’t dead _yet_ , and he wasn’t throwing up anymore. That, Stiles figured, was what the kids these days called progress.

He looked at the pool of werewolf barf by the sofa and swore that each and every single furry friend of his owed him at least ten years of gratitude, and exactly zero death threats for the rest of his natural life.

“Do you even have cleaning supplies?” Stiles asked, not expecting an answer.

Derek was positively out cold, but also looked considerably less likely to die, so Stiles decided to take a tour around the loft and see if he could at least find a dish rag. Or a shirt he could appropriate and later claim mysteriously destroyed by an invisible monster of the week.

He also texted Scott to let him know there probably was no immediate danger of death and received a cryptic _OK??!_ in response.

There were no dish rags or even a mop anywhere in the gigantic loft, and if there were, they were probably hidden in a closet of despair somewhere only broody werewolves could go, if they ever felt like getting their shit together.

Stiles made his way back to the sofa and froze on the spot.

Because Derek. Was up on his feet. And he was wearing yellow rubber gloves. And had clearly just cleaned the floor.

Stiles stared.

“You going to help me?” Derek demanded with a judgmental quirk of his eyebrows.

What, Stiles thought.

“What,” Stiles said.

“This place is a mess,” Derek announced and walked towards the ceiling-high window that, yeah, probably hadn’t been cleaned in at least a decade and it looked like a multitude of urban pigeons had died crashing into it, but just. _What_.

“So… you’re okay?” Stiles asked and received a Derek Hale Glare #56 in reply.

“Curtains,” Derek said, like that was supposed to clarify something.

“What,” Stiles repeated.

“Need to clean the window first,” Derek said.

Stiles still wasn’t catching on. He swore he could hear the muffled X-Files theme song playing in the distance, though.

“You don’t… have any cleaning rags?” he then offered because okay, fine, whatever the curse was about, it was probably for the best to just go along with it and ask questions later. At least until Deaton figured out what the hell was going on.

Derek gave him his So Done With Your Bullshit Right Now face number four and tore off his shirt. Like _tore_. Ripped it off his own torso. And then tossed half of it at Stiles, who was now sure there would be tiny green aliens flying in through the window, guerrilla style, any second now.

Also abs.

 _Hello_.

Derek marched off to the window, the other half of his destroyed shirt in hand, and left Stiles standing in the middle of the room. Clearly there _were_ cleaning supplies somewhere in the loft, considering Derek had a whole bucket of soapy water that he sunk his make-do washcloth in, and then began to scrub the window clean.

And there were muscles. Back muscles. Hel _lo_ again. Stiles may or may not have tripped on his feet. While standing still. No one needed to know.

He called Scott.

“What’s wrong?” Scott said, first thing. Bless his little wolfy heart.

“There are sparkly vampires at the door,” Stiles hissed, and before Scott could freak out completely, added, “I’m so far in the Twilight zone right now.”

“What happened?” Scott asked, and Stiles could hear him pacing. He could also imagine Isaac hovering and Deaton doing his stoic, mysterious mentor thing.

“Derek is cleaning the windows.”

There was a silence.

“No, seriously, he’s cleaning the windows. He stopped throwing up and started _cleaning_ and ––“

Stiles turned around to see Derek doing _one-armed push-ups_. On the floor. Sans shirt. Because shirt was torn and in a bucket of water. What. And also hel _lo_. Stiles had to turn away because hell _no_.

“Stiles?” Scott sounded almost as mystified as Stiles felt. “Did something happen?”

Stiles cleared his throat. “Yeah, no, all good here. Just. Can you like figure out how to fix this? Soon-ish? Like, now, maybe?”

“We’re working on it,” Scott promised and hung up.

Stiles pocketed his phone, took a deep breath, and braced himself for what was to come. He turned around, and for a brief moment he thought Derek had vanished.

Except he hadn’t.

He was just lying on the floor, cheek against the dusty concrete.

And just. _What_. Stiles seriously needed a way to make his mental italics more slanted.

“Derek? You alive there, buddy?”

Derek didn’t answer.

There was a loud sigh, though, and Stiles swore he could hear Derek murmur something against the grime on the floor.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I can’t do this,” Derek announced, a bit louder this time.

“Work out while cursed and throwing up black goo?” Stiles took a wary step closer. “Yeah, I could have told you that.”

Derek sighed again, with his whole body.  A cloud of dust danced around Derek’s face.

“I can’t fix all this,” Derek elaborated, and okay, Stiles could sort of see where he was coming from, seeing as there was a friggin’ hole in the wall, but this was still a bit too Twin Peaks for him.

“Do you maybe want to have your emotional breakdown on the sofa?” he suggested a moment later.

“The floor is fine.”

Stiles nodded.

The floor was fine.

Okay.

Scott and Isaac needed to be back, like, yesterday. Preferably with one of Deaton’s fancy magic fairy dust containers that fixed everything.

Stiles texted Scott to let him know just that.

*

Derek hadn’t moved an inch for at least fifteen minutes, and Stiles supposed he’d just passed out again. It wasn’t exactly the most ideal situation, but a grumpy werewolf having a mental breakdown (that was long overdue, really) was slightly better than a grumpy werewolf being all domestic and productive and cleaning windows with no shirt on. Or dying. Although the cleaning was actually more terrifying than the dying.

Stiles was pretty sure his priorities were kind of fucked. He was also pretty sure Derek’s weird behavior reminded him of _something_ but he couldn’t figure out what.

His phone buzzed.

“Dude, we know what’s wrong with him,” Scott announced when Stiles picked up.

“Oh thank _god_. Did Deaton tell you how to fix it?”

Scott sounded weirdly happy when he answered. “Yeah, we’re coming over. We just need to get some stuff first.”

Stiles punched the air.

Derek still hadn’t moved.

*

Scott and Isaac returned, with a surprise addition of Lydia in tow, twenty minutes later.

They were carrying two bags of groceries.

Stiles was confused.

“So bacon and eggs are supposed to fix him _how_ , exactly?” he asked while going through the bags.

Scott, Isaac and Lydia exchanged conspiring looks, but no one bothered to clarify.

Lydia pulled out a laptop from her bag and handed it to Stiles.

“Can someone maybe use their words and tell me what the hell is going on?” Stiles said, and swore Isaac was trying not to break down laughing.

“Remember that time Allison broke up with me, and you drank that bottle of Jack? And then you spent the next day eating Doritos and watching wildlife documentaries on Netflix, and you thought you were gonna die?” Scott said.

Stiles made a gesture he felt accurately communicated his complete bafflement. “How does that––“

Stiles’ arms dropped to his sides.

Scott grinned and looked like an over eager Golden Retriever waiting for something to fetch.

“He has a hangover,” Stiles deadpanned. “How does a werewolf get a hangover.”

Isaac was _definitely_ having a hard time keeping it together.

“There was a witch, remember? It’s a curse, or something. Deaton figured it out when you told about the cleaning,” Scott explained, with a gesture that was probably supposed to mime Derek cleaning. It was actually kind of accurate

Stiles thought of Deaton waking up at the vet clinic after a wild night out (he was so not even going to imagine what Deaton’s wild night out may have included) and arranging his creepy magic powder jars and scrubbing the animal cages clean with the sheer power of his regret. Made sense.

There was a rustling sound behind them, followed by a low _thunk_.

When the four of them turned to look, they saw one of the grocery bags on the floor and, cue ominous music, Derek, who was clearly done getting closely acquainted with the various primitive life forms on his floor, and was now sitting on the sofa. Well, more like huddling. With a spoon. And a carton of ice cream. It was strawberry cheesecake.

Isaac fled the loft. You could still hear him howling with laughter outside.

Scott grinned and announced they were going to try and find the witch, and find out if she could be persuaded to lift the curse.

Lydia tapped on the laptop with a perfect fingernail. “There’s a list of recommendations on there,” she said and walked out.

Stiles was left with a hungover werewolf and two bags of greasy food.

Well.

*

Derek had finished his ice cream and was now digging into a loaf of white bread. Like, literally digging into. He kept digging out bits of bread and left the crust untouched. He was also staring off into the distance, weirdly determined, and if Stiles hadn’t known better, his vote would have been on the long-overdue life-crisis.

Stiles looked at a package of bacon and a jar of pickles, and cleared his throat.

“So, you pissed off a witch, huh?”

Derek gave him a dirty look and chewed on his bread.

“You’re loud. Shut up.”

So, okay, at least he was still pretty much himself. Deep down. Well, more like completely, but Stiles couldn’t get over the cleaning, or the ice cream.

“How did you manage to piss off a witch?” Stiles rephrased, and didn’t bother lowering his voice. Derek could deal. He _had_ pissed off a witch.

“I didn’t,” Derek grunted. He looked at the loaf of bread, made a face, and tossed the leftovers off the sofa.

“Yeah, maybe not on purpose, but in case you haven’t noticed, you have this natural talent for getting on people’s nerves,” Stiles pointed out, and received a raised eyebrow in reply. He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, shut up.”

Derek sighed. It sounded a lot like the full-body sigh Stiles had witnessed when Derek had had his meltdown on the floor.

“I’m cold,” Derek whined. “And I hate these pants.”

There was angry stripping, and yelling, and Derek may or may not have made Stiles poke at his abs because he felt _fat_ and needed someone to tell him he wasn’t – what the hell was Stiles’ life – and a blanket was fetched, and Stiles regretted every single decision he’d ever made in his life that had brought him here, including the time he asked if Scott wanted to play detectives with him when they were four years old and hung out at the same playground.

*

Derek was sitting on the sofa, wrapped up in a blanket, and watching something about penguins on Lydia’s laptop. He was also wearing a pair of what were quite possibly the most hideous basketball shorts Stiles had ever seen in his entire life, because the alternative was a pair of socks – _nothing_ but a pair of socks – and yeah, _no_ , Stiles was not going to stand for that.

Stiles also absolutely refused to acknowledge the fact that Derek looked somewhat emotional when a lone penguin wandered off into the icy desert.

“I need you to hit me with that lamp,” Derek said, indicating said lamp with a nod.

Stiles’ face asked the question for him.

“Or I could just bang my head into the wall.”

“You’re not knocking yourself out,” Stiles argued with an attempt at So Done With Your Bullshit Right Now face number eight.

“I will rip your––“

“That’s like the emptiest threat of all the empty threats ever and no one is threatened by it anymore.”

“My head hurts. And I hate this blanket.”

And thus a blanket was tossed all the way across the room with superhuman strength, and a lamp was tossed at Derek with decidedly more human strength. No one was knocked out. Derek continued to watch the penguins.

*

Peter appeared around noon, took one look at his nephew (currently curled up on the floor next to his bed because “it’s too bright, Stiles, make it stop”), cracked up and was quickly escorted out by Stiles.

Stiles texted Scott to let him know just how much he hated each and every single one of the people who called themselves his friends.

He received a smiley face in return.

Derek demanded Stiles bring him orange juice and a straw.

Stiles told Derek to shut up.

*

“She thought I took the last bag of Twizzlers from the gas station,” Derek mumbled from his newly-built blanket fort. Which was totally a blanket fort and Derek wasn’t fooling anyone. Also, he was cold, again, which was why he’d decided to become a blanket burrito.

“Who did?”

“The witch.”

“Okay.”

“I think something’s eating my brain.”

“Probably.”

Derek threw up.

*

Stiles _had_ dealt with hangovers before.

Other people’s hangovers.

Well, his dad’s.

Years ago, when… _everything_ had happened, and Dad hadn’t been able to deal. Stiles had cooked him bacon and eggs and made him drink pickle juice. That’s what mom would have done.

“What,” Derek grunted and looked at the greasy bacon and scrambled eggs Stiles set in front of him on the coffee table. If it was a coffee table. It looked more like a wooden crate someone had kicked a few holes in. It wasn’t too hard to guess who that someone might have been.

“Eat it,” Stiles ordered.

“No.”

“Oh for– Just try it, okay? Can’t hurt you, at least.”

Derek grumbled into his blanket.

“What was that?” Stiles asked, and nudged the plate closer to Derek.

Derek sneered. And looked like he was about to hiss.

“Eat it, or I swear to god, I’m making you drink pickle juice, and I won’t be responsible for the consequences.”

“No.”

“ _Fine._ ”

*

Stiles would never talk about the pickle juice incident, to anyone, ever, not even under the pain of death. Derek agreed.

*

Derek was up and walking, but he was still wearing the awful shorts that clearly wanted to escape their own awfulness and hung so low on his hips, that Stiles felt like jumping out though the window and into an ocean of NOPE.

Derek was also humming that creepy kids’ song about row boats, and Stiles suddenly felt a keen sense of impending doom.

*

 _Found the witch!!_ Scott texted him some hours later, and Stiles wanted to hug something. His options were sort of limited, though, so he didn’t.

Derek had discovered a shirt but he had also discovered a pair of white tennis socks that looked like they’d lived in someone’s gym bag for at least a decade, so Stiles’ joy was short-lived. Apparently the socks made Derek feel safe. Stiles did not ask.

“I should be a better person,” Derek said, staring off into the distance. Or maybe at the hole in the wall. Who the hell knew.

“I could start eating organic,” he continued. “Or adopt and endangered animal. Like a Black Rhino.”

Stiles choked on nothing and decided to not let Derek see a single newspaper, ever.

*

“I want to die.”

“You and me both, buddy.”

*

Derek had been sitting almost perfectly still for an hour.

Stiles was shooting impatient texts at Scott, who was either ignoring him or currently being torn to shreds by an angry witch whose idea of a good time was casting hangover spells on people. Werewolves. Whatever. The point _was_ : Scott wasn’t answering his damn phone, and Stiles was starting to get all fidgety and genuinely had no idea what he was supposed to do. No one was dying, and the big baby he was supposed to be, well, babysitting, clearly didn’t want to play nice. Or at all. Not that playing was–– Yeah, no, not going to follow that train of thought. At all. Ever.

Stiles decided to sit down on the sofa. Maybe he was feeling adventurous. Maybe he, too, had a death wish.

Derek huffed.

Derek frowned.

Derek curled into himself and glared.

“You’re too close,” he finally growled.

Stiles made a face of utter and total shock, rolled his eyes and got up.

“No,” Derek grunted. “Not going anywhere.”

Stiles felt his eyebrows climb all the way up to his hairline. He did sit back down, though, on the far end of the sofa, back stiff, eyes darting back and forth between Derek’s glare-y face and the hole-y wall of the loft.

“Soooo,” Stiles began, tentative, “you feeling any better?”

He received a complex sigh-slash-grunt-slash-groan in reply.

“Okay. I’ll take that as a –– what the holy fuck, Derek.”

Stiles, with his arms in the air, and a _definite_ sense of impending doom lodged firmly in his chest, stared down at his lap, because said lap was now adorned with approximately two hundred pounds of hungover werewolf.

Tiny. Green. Aliens.

“Shut up,” the two hundred pounds of hungover werewolf muttered.

“Just––“

“Not a word.”

“But––“

“Throat. Teeth. Shush.”

Stiles mouthed a silent _ooookay_ and spread his arms in surrender. Because that was the only thing he could do with his arms. Without things getting weird. Er. Not that there were many things weirder than the past, holy shit, _ten hours_ of his life. He should write a book about all this crap. Even though no one would want to publish it, because it’d be deemed too fucking weird by all human standards.

Stupid werewolves. Stupid witches. Stupid weird-ass Beacon Hills and its thriving supernatural community.

*

It was getting dark, and Stiles was beginning to regret throwing the lamp at Derek. The city lights that filtered in through the grimy window (the lower left corner of which, Stiles noted, was actually squeaky clean) lit up the loft a little, but it wasn’t much. So yeah, dark.

Also: passed out werewolf. In Stiles’ lap.

Stiles had no idea how long they’d been sitting there, but the sun had set, and at some point he’d noticed Derek drifting off. He’d even snored a little. Stiles wished he had recorded it for future blackmail purposes.

Stiles’ arms may also have settled somewhere other than the back rest of the sofa but all witnesses were unconscious, so. You know. No witnesses. Technically.

Stiles’ phone buzzed and he nearly punched himself in the eye trying to answer.

“Dude, we found the witch!” Scott’s voice sounded weirdly loud after a while of almost complete silence in the darkened loft.

“Yeah, you told me. How’d it go?” Stiles tried to keep his voice down. It would’ve felt weird to be using his usual decibels in the current situation. Why was he even referring to it as a situation. What situation. There was no situation.

“She said she’d messed with some witch booze a few nights back and felt really sick, so she just sort of transferred it to Derek,” Scott explained, and Stiles was pretty damn sure that was basically the worst reason to curse anyone, ever.

“That’s. I don’t even have words for how ridiculous that is,” Stiles said. “Did she say she’d lift the curse?”

“No, man. She didn’t need to. She said it only lasts from sunrise to sunset, so Derek should be fine now.” Scott sounded worried, all of a sudden. “Isn’t he fine?”

Stiles glanced at the knocked-out werewolf on his lap and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, he’s fine. Totally fine. Perfectly okay.”

“Awesome! We’ll be back in like fifteen minutes,” Scott promised and Stiles hung up.

Derek sighed in his sleep.

Which. Okay.

That was kind of okay.

**Author's Note:**

> This beautiful piece of literary art came to be in an enclosed space inhabited by three hungover human beings who needed to inflict their pain on a fictional character. Two of those people told the third one to write it down. I am that third person. 
> 
> PS. I hang out on [Tumblr](http://elsmaster.tumblr.com). The other two are internet creepers without known aliases.


End file.
